[sdiy] soldering iron problem

[Barry Klein]

A SOLDERING SAGA
I started off with my dad's home-made soldering iron.
A pencil iron sitting on top of some weird power supply thing in an aluminum
case, nice glowing white incandescent indicator light.
Then I got modern and got my own soldering gun.  It worked well on the heavy
duty stuff I was doing back then (35 years ago?).  It was great that it had
that nice light bulb lighting things up too.
Then I had to work on smaller stuff that the gun would burn up or damage
electrically, so I switched to an AC powered pencil iron.  This worked fine
for me for years and should you.  But hey, I wanted the cool Weller
soldering stations like I saw at the "big" companies I worked for.  So I got
a couple of those after seeing them at a swap meet (needing repair).  These
too worked fine for me.  My work at the time had the same irons.
Then the world realized that we were surrounded by the dreaded ESD monster
and all our irons were crap.  Use ion shooting fans that themselves made it
harder to solder because they cooled everything down...  Buy new irons that
had better grounding.  All the tip styles changed.  I took the irons from
work home and use them there.
Then.  The most dreaded moment in electronics history of all. ROHS.
Again, all our irons are crap.  Not hot enough.  All our solders are crap -
gee they have lead in them!!
So out we go and buy new irons again.  Hey they work like crap.  The tips
last 2 days and I can't find them for sale anywhere... Maybe we should try
one of those fancier irons with the micropen tips and electronic sensing
temperature control and magnetic detection of the handle for power savings
and less tip wear???  The damn fancy pencil iron tip lasts about a week and
costs $30 to replace.  The cheaper tips in the more standard irons last
longer but take babying to maintain for any length of time.  Turn it on,
solder, coat tip with solder, turn off.  If you leave it on it gets the
dreaded black crud.  That used to come off on the older cooler running
solders and tips.  But with these it doesn't - likely because the magic
coating/plating is now burned off the tip.  Its miserable.  I think a heated
nail would be a better soldering tool.
At home I use solders with lead and the older irons and stay happy.  At work
I tend to cuss a lot.  I am usually the guy that has to go out and buy new
tips etc. and fill out expense forms etc.  Sucks.
The bronze steel wool thingies worked great on the older irons but are
frowned upon on the new ROHS stuff.  Same goes for that tip cleaner/plater
stuff that comes in a little white circular tin.  That stuff worked really
great at making your tip freshly solder coated.  Basically the coating for
the ROHS tips must be very thin and easily damaged.

Leo Fender bought hard rosin and dug his iron into that before soldering.
Not the goowey rosin you see for "electrical work".  I don't see it for sale
much but I found some for home and it works good.  I don't know how it works
for the new ROHS stuff though.

Barry


-----Original Message-----
From: synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl
[mailto:synth-diy-bounces at dropmix.xs4all.nl] On Behalf Of KA4HJH
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 2:43 PM
To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
Subject: Re: [sdiy] soldering iron problem

>harrybissell at wowway.com wrote:
>> no need to use water / sponge.  Tip life is WAY better that way.
>
>Does using water cause too much heat cycling?

No, it comes back up in a couple of seconds. I've used the sponge for 20
years. Every time the pencil comes out of the holder it gets scraped over
the sponge. That way the tip is perfectly clean just as I'm about to use
it. In a production environment running the irons 18+ hours a day, five
days a week tips would last over six months.

Are there better ways? Probably. I've never needed to do it any different.
The sponge tray is right under the pencil holder. Less futzing around for
me.

Still on the same WTCP-N for over 20 years now. I've changed the tip once.

-- 

Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor"
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